Our old friend, Darby Hourigan, who dressed himself in rags for the occasion, then came forward; and, after pulling up the waistband of his breeches, and twisting his revolting features into what he designed for, but what no earthly being could suppose, a grin, he spoke as follows:—­“My lard, an’ gintlemen o’ the jury, it ’ud be a hard case if we suffered poor Misther Purcel and his two daicent, ginerous, kind-hearted sons, to be condimed ’idout a word at all in their definse.  First, then, is it fair that we should be angry bekaise one of our own race and rallagion should spring up from among ourselves, and take his station over us like the Cromwellian shoneens, that are doin’ oppression upon uz and our shildres!  An’, hadn’t he as good a right to get the law at his back as they have? an’ to make it bring him through the same hard-hearted coorses that made him rich and keep us poor?  What had he done but what others had been doin’ for ages, an’ wor doin’ still? ay, by jabers, an’ ’ud continue to do unless the people put a stop to it.  Worn’t his sons gintlemen no less?  Didn’t they go out to hunt dressed in top-boots, buck-skin breeches, scarlet coats, and velvet jockey-caps; and didn’t his daughters ride about upon blood-horses an’ side-saddles?  An’ why are they called blood-horses do yez know?  Ah, by jabers, if yez don’t I’ll tell you—­it’s bekaise they wor bought and maintained by the blood of the poor?  Ay, they do all this, but if they do, who’s to blame them?  Poor! ershisin!  Arra what was I sayin’?  Sure they do it bekaise we all have plenty to ait and dhrink, plenty to wear; good coats to our backs, like this”—­and here he shook the rags he dangled about him in hundreds; “good breeches to—­hem—­no matther—­good shoes and stockings to our feet; good heads to our hats—­hut!  I mane good hats to our heads—­and fusht-rate linen to our shkins; ay—­sich as this,” he added again.  “Whisht!” he exclaimed, with a laugh like an Eclipse, “bad luck to the fatther of it, but I forgot at home—­along wid the other eleven—­or stop—­here it is to the good still,” pointing to his naked skin, “an’ be my sowl, boys—­my lard an’ gintlemen o’ the jury, I mane—­it’s the weavor of this linen that’ll stand to us yet.

“Gintlemin, I do maintain that there’s a great dale to be said for Mat Purcel.  To be sure he skrewed the last fardin’ out of uz, but where was there ever a tithe-procthor that didn’t do the same thing?  An’ sure if he tuck as much as he could from huz, an’ gev as little as he could to the parson, wasn’t it all so much the betther?  Wasn’t it weakenin’ their fat church and fattening our weak on’?—­where’s the honest Catholic could say a word aginst that?  To be sure, we all know that, by his knowledge of farmin’, and all the ins and outs of our little tillage, he contrived, one way or other, to take about the fifth of our little produce; but then if he did, didn’t he say it was all by way of friendship an’ indulgence to us?  Sure didn’t himself tell us that only he pitied us an’ felt for us, he’d a’ been ten times harsher than he was, an’ so he would, be coorse, an’ ’tis thankful we have a right to be, an’ not grumblin’ at all at all.